4 ms·
I see the author's viewpoint, but I'm not sure I agree. When I touch the page of a book, I'm interacting with the book, not the text; the exception is if I'm us
by gervase 8y ago
I see the author's viewpoint, but I'm not sure I agree. When I touch the page of a book, I'm interacting with the book, not the text; the exception is if I'm using some kind of writing instrument (pencil, highlighter, etc).
The current model allows you to mostly interact with the Kindle as you would a book - a light touch anywhere on the visual field (i.e. the page) flips in that direction. However, you can also leverage the added functionality that the Kindle provides, which is indeed the text interaction.
However, I mainly use this for looking up unfamiliar words, rather than for highlighting. I agree that the current system is unsuitable for highly-interactive reading, such as by jotting notes in the margins, highlighting passages, circling words, and so on. On the other hand, I suspect that this type of highly-engaged reading is the exception, not the rule, and that for most of the Kindle's audience, they would no more "interact" with the text of their book than they would if it were printed.
If the primary argument is on the "surprising-ness" of the UI, that could be handled in the same way that Nook did when they first switched to a touchscreen, by overlaying regions on the screen to teach users where to tap. Then, once they were familiar with the behavior, they could turn it off. This is not ideal, as it reduces the legibility of the text, which I'm sure is why this is probably not the default.
Anyway, an engaging read nonetheless, and I'm certainly ready to be proven wrong by a new interaction model that works better. This could definitely be a case of "I want a faster horse" behavior on my part.
- cmod 8y agoI think there is a subset of users who interact with text far more than others. I find I can't read without a pen in hand — if I am not marking up the text or taking marginal notes then I feel like I'm only receiving a narrow sliver of what I consider a "full" reading experience. (This is true for novels as much, if not more, as it is for non-fiction.) My suggestions were to bring to the Kindle something akin to the experience of reading paper with a pen in hand.
- kemayo 8y agoNot disagreeing with the existence of this subset of the market, but I almost never see someone reading this way outside of "reading for a class" situations where note-taking is mandated. Could be a selection bias, and how often does one really see other people reading and pay attention to it, but... So it would seem strange to optimize for the active note-taker over the presumably more prevalent passive reader. That said, having some sort of active note-taking mode would make a lot of sense. Satisfy the niche, and let the very occasional use of it be available for the person who rarely needs to take bursts of notes. Amazon seems to be experimenting a little with making the screen less active while reading -- they added the ability to disable the touchscreen and /only/ have the buttons on the Oasis 2[0]. [0]: http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2017/12/14/heres-how-to-disable-the-touchscreen-on-kindle-oasis-2/ http://blog.the-ebook-reader.com/2017/12/14/heres-how-to-dis...
- ropeadopepope 8y agoWouldn't a tablet be a better interface for that style of reading? e-ink doesn't have the best of refresh rates.
- criddell 8y agoLibrarians must hate you.